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Copyright laws vary from country to country, but in the US, the copyright of a film expires 95 years after release. Thus, every year, a crop of old movies (and other works of art) enters the public domain, and 2025's haul is better than average, both in terms of film and literature. Novels like Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury entered the public domain on January 1st, as did beloved characters like Popeye and Tintin. The short film The Karnival Kid, Mickey Mouse's first talking appearance, also lost its copyright on that date.

It’s become an annual ritual: Every Jan. 1, more classic works of art or characters enter the public domain, and exploitation filmmakers with a tiny budget and a big taste for grisliness are scouring the list, looking for suddenly free intellectual property to turn into horror fare. Hence the slasher films that have already been created or are in the works turning beloved characters into homicidal maniacs, like the infamous “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.”

But these Pd-sploitation filmmakers are really picking low-hanging fruit and not digging nearly deep enough into the lists for ideas. So we’ve identified some films, novels and even memoirs and pop songs that are brand new to the public domain, as of the beginning of 2025, just begging to be bloodied up. Yes, including Popeye, the seeming innocent who arguably always had a bit of the glint of a serial killer in his eye — but also...

The new year has begun, and several major characters have officially become part of the public domain. Among them is a certain cartoon sailor with a taste for canned spinach.

Per CBS, Popeye is one of many properties that became public domain as of Jan. 1, 2025. Popeye's very first appearance was in the King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on Jan. 17, 1929. The character was an instant hit with fans, taking over as the strip's central character and eventually causing it to be renamed as Popeye. Depicted as a sailor with abnormally large forearms who gained superhuman strength after consuming spinach, the Popeye character would later be further popularized in animation. Notably, Robin Williams once played a live-action incarnation of the character the 1980 movie Popeye.

Related Disney & Gundam Collide With Bandai's Most Unexpected New Crossover Collectible

An upcoming Mickey Mouse figure from Bandai sees the iconic Disney character transforming into a giant...

Get ready, nerds: a whole host of iconic works of art — from film, music, animation, books, and more—are coming into the public domain in 2025. Last year's Public Domain Day was a big deal because it included the first-ever iteration of Disney's brand-defining Mickey Mouse. This year sees dozens of more Mickey animations entering the fold, alongside a host of other notable titles and characters, like Tintin, Popeye, "The Skeleton Dance" from Disney's SIlly Symphonies, alongside books like William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Oh, and did we mention we're also getting the Marx Brothers' first feature film, as well as Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford's first sound films?

Needless to say, that sound you hear is a million writers running to adapt Popeye and Tintin into the next great/bad horror film,...

For his Oscar-contending documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, filmmaker Benjamin Ree drew inspiration from literary sources as much or more than cinematic ones.

“One of my main interests is dramaturgy… and structure,” he says over a breakfast of an omelet and waffles in Amsterdam. “I’m obsessed with that, and I’ve been studying that my whole life.”

In his Netflix film, Ree explores the journey of Mats Steen, a young Norwegian man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a terminal condition that causes progressive weakening of the heart and skeletal structure. Despite the physical limitations caused by the disorder, Mats lived a rich life in the online World of Warcraft game – where his avatar was the powerfully built, able-bodied Ibelin. In that setting, Mats made many friends and impacted people far and wide, but his parents had no idea of their son’s vibrant virtual experiences until after his passing...

This article contains discussions of sexual assault.

If there's one thing Stephen King knows pretty well, it's villains. The prolific horror author has been writing basically nonstop since he released "Carrie," his debut novel, back in 1974, and his work has been endlessly adapted for both the big and small screen. In 2009, he even compiled a list of his favorite villains that he didn't create, and it's a pretty solid rundown — which certainly isn't surprising.

From literary icons to on-screen favorites to a villain with a confusingly familiar name — I'll clarify that whole thing when we arrive at that point — here are Stephen King's top ten villains of all time, whom he ranked for Entertainment Weekly at the close of the aughts. King ranked his top 10 from "least villainous" to "most villainous," apparently, so we've preserved that order here.

Read more: The 50 Scariest Horror Movie Monsters Ranked

Max Cady From Cape Fear...

Being two of comedy’s most famous talents, Seth Rogen and James Franco had an enduring friendship, which included a long history of riffing off one another and collaborating. Beginning their collaboration with the 1999 show Freaks and Geeks, Rogen and Franco had a friendship spanning over two decades until the duo fell apart in 2018.

James Franco and Seth Rogen in The Interview | image: Columbia Pictures

Despite working together in hit comedies and sharing an unbreakable bond, Seth Rogen and James Franco sparked a rift, after the latter was accused of s*xually inappropriate behavior in an L.A. Times article. After Franco’s s*xual misconduct lawsuit was settled, the allegations seemingly caused him and Rogen to drift apart. Since then, their friendship has never been repaired.

The Beginning of James Franco and Seth Rogen’s Friendship

James Franco and Seth Rogen were both young and newcomers in the industry when...

Just as Max had a major addition in May with Dune: Part Two, it has a major attention-grabber in June with House of the Dragon's second season. And that's not to mention the docuseries Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood hitting the streamer on the 21st, which is sure to attract a ton of viewers. But what about movies?

As usual, most new movies hitting Max do so on the first of the month. But, there are a few extra additions peppered throughout the remainder. From a classic vampire movie and a Chronicles of Narnia sequel to the Open Water and Paul Blart movies, there's a wide assortment hitting Max in June 2024. Let's start with a few big ones.

The Disaster Artist (2017) June 1 Your browser does not support the video tag.

James Franco hasn't worked in the industry for about five years now, and for good reason.

In the "Twilight Zone" episode "A Game of Pool", Jack Klugman plays a would-be pool champion named Jesse who feels that he would be more widely recognized for his billiard skills, were he not living in the shadow of the late pool champion James Howard "Fats" Brown. Jesse posits that if he had had the opportunity to play against Fats, he would definitely win. In a supernatural twist, Fats (Jonathan Winters) arrives from the afterlife to accept the challenge. The ensuing game, however, comes with a stipulation: if Jesse wins, he will indeed be granted the lifelong reputation as the greatest pool player of all time. If he loses, he'll die in obscurity. Jesse accepts.

Throughout their game, Fats points out that living well and happily is more important than the hard-edged fame of being a great pool player. Jesse doesn't listen. He wants fame.

Jesse, perhaps shockingly, wins the game.

The CW's Arrowverse franchise a huge hit with fans and critics alike, spanning six live action shows and two animated projects. The multi-show franchise showcased an interconnected world of DC Comics characters, and featured many lesser known heroes. While most characters enjoyed rich, complete stories, others never reached their full potential.

Related: Every Finale In The Arrowverse, Ranked According To IMDb

Arrowverse characters like the Flash, Green Arrow, and Supergirl were the stars of their respective series, so they enjoyed the most time in the spotlight. Supporting characters like Kid Flash, Booster Gold, and Hawkgirl received far less screentime and struggled to convey the same sense of growth or impact. They might've accomplished impressive feats in the comics, but they never reached the heights they were capable of during their Arrowverse appearances.

Mike/Booster Gold

The Arrowverse's Booster Gold only appeared in the final episode of Legends of Tomorrow. Primarily known as Mike,...

Warning: The following contains Spoilers for The Flash season 9, episode 2, "Hear No Evil."The Arrowverse version of Pied Piper embraced the identity of a hero in The Flash season 9, fixing a mistake that has plagued the hit superhero series since the beginning. The Pied Piper of The Flash comics started out as a supervillain but developed into a key member of Team Flash. The Flash series went in another direction, teasing a heroic Pied Piper but never following through on the idea.

The action of The Flash season 9 episode "Hear No Evil" centered around the reformed Pied Piper Hartley Rathaway (Andy Mientus), who had given up crime to open a dance club. Hartley was targeted by a new version of The Fiddler (Magda Apanowicz), who was revealed to be in the employ of The Flash season 9's chief villain Red Death. While Hartley was originally out for blood after The Fiddler attacked him,...

’Lazy Girls’ is the latest title from the Tunisian-born French filmmaker.

Paris-based Luxbox has acquired international rights to Karim Dridi’s road movie Lazy Girls and will kick off talks with buyers at this week’s European FIlm Market.

Newcomers Fanny Jullian and Julie Dumont star in the film about two young women who hit the road in their old truck after being chased from the land they were squatting and head off on an adventure.

Produced by France’s Mirak Films and Les Films du Veyrier, Lazy Girls is the latest title from Tunisian-born French filmmaker Dridi. His credits...

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Cinema Retro continues covering films that are not currently available on home video in the U.S. or U.K.

By Brian Hannan

"Sanctuary" is an overheated melodrama that stands as a classic example of Hollywood’s offensive attitudes to women. Nobel prize-winning author William Faulkner could hardly blame the movies for sensationalising his misogynistic source material since, if anything, the movie took a softer line. The story is told primarily in flashback as headstrong southern belle Temple Drake (Lee Remick) attempts to mitigate the death sentence passed on her maid Nancy (Odetta). Given that such appeals are directed at Drake’s Governor father (Howard St John), and that the maid has been condemned for murdering Drake’s infant child, that’s a whole lot of story to swallow.

Worse is to follow. Drake takes up with Prohibition bootlegger Candy Man (Yves Montand...

“It’s strange, but some movies present themselves almost entirely in your head.”—Joel Coen

“I’ll show you a life of the mind!”—Charlie Meadows, a.k.a. Karl Mundt, a.k.a. “Madman” Mundt

Everyone knows about the telegram. It’s an apocryphal Hollywood story, with the actual letter lost to time. But its recipient Ben Hecht quotes it in his memoir, A Child of the Century. The famed journalist, novelist and playwright was toiling away in New York when he received a missive straight from Babylon, courtesy...

’Beautiful Minds’ is inspired by the real-life experiences of co-director Alexandre Jollien who was born with cerebral palsy but overcame his disabilities to study philosophy

Elle Driver has launched sales on Bernard Campan and Alexandre Jollien’s pioneering French comedy-drama Beautiful Minds, about a workaholic funeral director and a solitary vegetable delivery man and philosopher born with cerebral palsy, who embark on a road trip in a hearse.

It is inspired by the real-life experiences of Jollien who was born with cerebral palsy but overcame his disabilities to study philosophy and become became a major thinker and spiritual teacher, who has written several best-selling books.

Latest round will support 20 fiction, one animation, and five documentary films.

New projects from Danish director Niels Arden Oplev and Portugal’s Miguel Gomes are among the 26 selected in the latest Eurimages co-production support funding round.

The 26 films have been awarded a total of €6.1m (£5.5m). 52% are directed by women, with those projects receiving €2.5m (£2.3m) – 41% of the total funding.

Arden Oplev’s new film Rose will receive €280,000, and is a co-production between Norway and his native Denmark. Oplev’s previous features include 2009’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and last year’s Daniel.

Also included is Gomes’ Savagery,...

Actor Stuart Whitman, an Oscar nominee for his role as a convicted child molester in the 1961 movie “The Mark,” died on Monday of natural causes surrounded by his family at his ranch house in Montecito, Calif., his son Justin told Variety. He was 92.

Whitman had more than 200 film and television credits. His movies include “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,” “The Longest Day,” “The Comancheros,” “The Sound and the Fury,” “Johnny Trouble,” “Hound-Dog Man,” “The Story of Ruth,” “Murder, Inc.,” “Convicts 4,” “Shock Treatment,” “Rio Conchos” and “The Day and the Hour.” Whitman made his film debut in 1951 in “When Worlds Collide.”

He replaced Richard Burton in the role of Jim Fuller on “The Mark,” which earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He lost out to Maximilian Schell, who won for “Judgment at Nuremberg.” Whitman portrayed a child molester who gets out of prison and seeks the aid of a psychiatrist,...

Stuart Whitman, a star of Westerns alongside John Wayne like “The Comancheros” and the war movie “The Longest Day,” died in his home Monday, his son told TMZ. Whitman was 92.

“Old Hollywood lost another one of its true stars. Stuart Whitman was known for his rugged roles and handsome charm. We were proud of him for his TV, film roles and his Oscar nomination, but what we will really remember is his exuberant love of his family and friends,” Whitman’s son Justin told TMZ.

TMZ says that Whitman had recently been in and out of the hospital due to skin cancer that seeped into his bloodstream.

Though Whitman played across many genres, he was nominated for an Oscar for the 1961 drama “The Mark,” in which he played a man convicted of attempting to commit...

Stuart Whitman, the rugged actor who starred on TV's Cimarron Strip and received an Oscar nomination for playing a convicted child molester trying to rid himself of psychological demons in The Mark, has died. He was 92.

Whitman died Monday of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California, his son Justin told The Hollywood Reporter.

In his big-screen heyday, Whitman also wooed Joanne Woodward in The Sound and the Fury (1959), starred opposite Simone Signoret as an American pilot downed in Nazi-occupied France in The Day and the Hour (1963) and portrayed the heroic American Orvil Newton in Those Magnificent Men in Their ...

Stuart Whitman, the rugged actor who starred on TV's Cimarron Strip and received an Oscar nomination for playing a convicted child molester trying to rid himself of psychological demons in The Mark, has died. He was 92.

Whitman died Monday of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California, his son Justin told The Hollywood Reporter.

In his big-screen heyday, Whitman also wooed Joanne Woodward in The Sound and the Fury (1959), starred opposite Simone Signoret as an American pilot downed in Nazi-occupied France in The Day and the Hour (1963) and portrayed the heroic American Orvil Newton in Those Magnificent Men in Their ...

“Pretty Little Liars” alum Keegan Allen has joined the cast of “Walker,” The CW’s upcoming reboot of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Variety has learned exclusively.

He joins previously announced stars Jared Padalecki and Lindsey Morgan. Padalecki stars as Cordell Walker, a widower and father of two with his own moral code, who returns home to Austin after being undercover for two years, only to discover there’s harder work to be done at home. He’ll attempt to reconnect with his children, navigate clashes with his family, and find unexpected common ground with his new partner (Morgan) — one of the first women in Texas Rangers’ history — while growing increasingly suspicious about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death.

Allen will play Liam Walker. Described as smart, slightly smug, but with a strong moral compass, Liam is Walker’s younger gay and conservative brother who has been recently promoted to assistant Da.

Harriet Frank Jr., who collaborated with her husband, Irving Ravetch, on the Oscar-nominated screenplays for “Norma Rae” and “Hud,” died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 96.

Her nephew Michael Frank announced her death to the New York Times.

Frank and Ravetch worked on 17 features together after meeting while writers at MGM. She and Ravetch were married from 1946 until his death in 2010 at age 89.

Frank and Ravetch worked on eight movies directed by Martin Ritt, starting with “The Long, Hot Summer” in 1958, followed by “The Sound and the Fury” in 1959 and “Hud” in 1963. “Hud,” based on Larry McMurtry’s “Horseman, Pass By,” was nominated for seven Academy Awards. In addition to the Oscar nomination, the “Hud” screenplay received the best written American drama award from the Writers Guild of America and an award from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Frank, Ravetch and Ritt collaborated on 1974’s “Conrack,...

Harriet Frank Jr., whose many screenplays co-written with husband Irving Ravetch included the acclaimed Hud and Norma Rae, died Tuesday at her home in the Hollywood Hills. She was 96.

Her death was announced by nephew Michael Frank to The New York Times. The Writers Guild of America West later tweeted its condolences.

Frank and Ravetch (he died in 2010) were known for socially conscious films, exemplified by 1979’s pro-union drama Norma Rae starring Sally Field (in an Oscar winning performance), and for adaptations of literary works.

Twice Oscar-nominated for their screenplays, Frank and Ravetch had a long-running collaboration with director Martin Ritt, beginning with The Long, Hot Summer in 1958 and continuing with The Sound and The Fury (1959); Hud, Hombre (1967), Conrack (1974), Norma Rae, Murphy’s Romance (1985) and Stanley & Iris (1990). In all,...

New films from Pepa San Martín and Golden Bear winner Adina Pintilie among the line up.

The films selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 22-26) have been revealed and top 50% by female directors in the official project selection for the first time.

Scroll down for full list of titles

A total of 36 features from 34 countries will be showcased by producers seeking co-production partners through one-to-one meetings with distributors, financiers and sales agents.

For the official project selection, 21 projects with budgets ranging from €750,000 to €5m were selected from more than 300 submissions. With 11 projects by female directors, the proportion here has exceeded 50% for the first time.

You may recall, dear reader, that in the years preceding “The Disaster Artist” James Franco was writing and directing films at a breakneck pace — “As I Lay Dying,” “Child of God,” “The Sound and the Fury,” and “In Dubious Battle” all premiered within a three-year span. So did “Zeroville,” a comedy based on Steve Erickson’s novel of the same name, but because it was acquired by Alchemy — the ill-fated distributor that went out of business mere months after picking up the film — it has yet to receive a theatrical release.

Until now, that is, as myCinema appears to have saved “Zeroville” from limbo. The company is based online but partners with some 500 theaters that have the option of licensing its films — like “The Chaperone,” written by “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes — for traditional brick-and-mortar releases.

Here’s the (rather lengthy) synopsis:

Join Vikar (James Franco), a wide-eyed innocent in love with the movies,...

James Franco is in negotiations to direct the movie “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” for Focus Features.

The project is based on the 2011 book of the same name by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, which recapped the formation of the sports network, based on interviews with more than 500 people. ESPN was launched in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott as the world’s first 24-hour cable TV network. It saw success by telecasting the early rounds of the Ncaa basketball tournament and the NFL Draft.

“Halt and Catch Fire” co-creator Christopher C. Rogers has been hired to re-write the script. Miller was tapped to adapt the script in 2015. Michael De Luca, Jamie Patricof, and Julie Yorn are producing the film.

Franco produced, directed, and starred in “The Disaster Artist,” which received strong reviews and earned one Academy Award nomination for adapted screenplay...

Following the success of “The Disaster Artist,” James Franco will star in the sci-fi thriller “Future World,” which he co-directed. Using a color palette and costume design that bears an uncanny resemblance to both the original “Mad Max” as well as 2016’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Future World” features car chases, cyborgs, and at least one reference to “the perfect woman.” Commence eye roll.

The movie stars Suki Waterhouse as a cyborg assassin known as a “synthetic,” who is coveted by the likes of Franco, Milla Jovovich, and Snoop Dogg for her powers. Though it’s unclear exactly what’s going on, she begins to malfunction and goes renegade in an effort to save a potential love interest. The film also stars Lucy Liu as a character known only as “The Queen.

“Future World” is co-directed by Bruce Thierry Cheung, the cinematographer who lensed Franco’s previous directorial efforts, “In Dubious Battle,...

Following the success of “The Disaster Artist,” James Franco will star in the sci-fi thriller “Future World,” which he co-directed. Using a color palette and costume design that bears an uncanny resemblance to both the original “Mad Max” as well as 2016’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Future World” features car chases, cyborgs, and at least one reference to “the perfect woman.” Commence eye roll.

The movie stars Suki Waterhouse as a cyborg assassin known as a “synthetic,” who is coveted by the likes of Franco, Milla Jovovich, and Snoop Dogg for her powers. Though it’s unclear exactly what’s going on, she begins to malfunction and goes renegade in an effort to save a potential love interest. The film also stars Lucy Liu as a character known only as “The Queen.

“Future World” is co-directed by Bruce Thierry Cheung, the cinematographer who lensed Franco’s previous directorial efforts, “In Dubious Battle,...

Barbara and Phoenix director Christian Petzold returned to Berlinale this year with Transit, without regular muse Nina Hoss for the first time since 2005’s Ghosts. Rather, the drama centers on Georg (Franz Rogowski), an escapee of a concentration camp who flees Paris just as the Nazis march in as the film depicts his few weeks in the French port city of Marseille before his final trip out of the continent. Despite the film taking place during the era of the Second World War, Petzold boldly decides to ignore the historical setting, costume- and production-wise, rather having the feel of the present day.

“Local boy Christian Petzold’s audacious retelling of Anna Seghers’s World War II-set novel about refugees escaping Nazi-controlled France is a strange, beguiling creation that will be hard to beat in the competition line-up, and ranks as a rare period piece that utterly gets under the skin of contemporary concerns,...

What’s being John Malkovich actually like? Embarrassing, apparently. The actor answered exactly 15 questions in a Q&A with the Guardian, one of which concerned the most embarrassing moment of his life. After citing a specific example — “recently, at the Hotel Caron in Paris, I got up to use the bathroom one night and found myself out in the hallway instead” — he gave the real answer: “But that is one of a million: I am a constant source of embarrassment to myself.”

Some of his other answers are equally revealing. Asked what trait he most deplores in himself, Malkovich responded, “Deplore might be strong, but general childishness, unseriousness and laziness in terms of what I’ve done compared with what maybe I should have or could have done.”

He’s literary too, of course, and when asked about his favorite book, said, “So many, but certainly ‘The Sound And The Fury’ by William Faulkner.

It’s no secret James Franco is one of the most hate-him-or-love-him actors working in Hollywood. But even those who consider themselves fans don’t always show up to the countless indies he makes in any given year, from “Memoria” to “The Adderall Diaries,” “King Cobra” and directorial efforts “In Dubious Battle” and “The Sound and the Fury.” At this point there’s no denying Franco has talent, but he takes on so many middling projects and appears in what seems like everything to the point that it can be hard to remember why you loved him in the first place.

Fortunately, Franco looks like he’s ready to remind us why he belongs in the business. It’s happened before — his Oscar-nomianted lead performance in “127 Hours,” his go-for-broke turn in “Spring Breakers” and...

Exclusive: Scott Haze, who has appeared in such films as Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special, The Sound and the Fury and Child Of God, has signed with a team at CAA, moving from ICM. Haze recently was seen in James Franco’s In Dubious Battle, with Nat Wolff, Josh Hutcherson and Selena Gomez, which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival. His upcoming slate includes Jason Hall’s Thank You for Your Service, starring Miles Teller and Amy Schumer, which Universal releases…...

Let it be known that I genuinely like James Franco. Given the choice between ‘yer average pretty boy movie star and a ludicrous avant-garde polymath jester, I’ll pick the latter every time. Problem is, while the self-titled Mayor of Gay Town gleefully smashes through cultural/social/artistic boundaries like a steam train, the art that’s produced at the end of it is… not great.

And so to In Dubious Battle, an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1936 novel of the same name and the latest in Franco’s quest to put his favorite books on screen. This weighty literary project has, thus far, borne little of value. His adaptations of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying were “nearly unwatchable” and “stale and jumbled,” and his take on Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God “tedious and meandering”. Sadly, this trend remains unbroken.

Set during the Great Depression,...

Continuing his brave effort to ensure that future students of American literature can just buy the VOD equivalent of a box set instead of ever having to read another Great American Novel again, actor-director James Franco has moved from adapting Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury) and McCarthy (Child of God) to Steinbeck with In Dubious Battle. The author's novel is the first of what would become Steinbeck’s Dustbowl trilogy (which also includes Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath) and recounts a Great Depression-era strike that apple pickers in California organized to get

read more...

James Franco is set to star in another Stephen King project! It will be a feature film adaptation of a short story called "Drunken Fireworks." There’s also a chance that Franco could direct it, but he hasn’t decided if he wants to do that or not yet.

Franco most recently worked on Hulu’s Stephen King and J.J. Abrams series 11.22.63, which was incredible! That series was just a perfect storm of awesomeness, and it’s great to see that Franco is taking on another of King’s creations. This sounds like it will be a great project for him.

Drunken Fireworks is a darkly comic tale of a blue-collar mechanic and a retired mob boss who go head to head in an increasingly antagonistic annual Fourth of July fireworks competition. The tale is set in small-town rural Maine, where local good ol’ boy Alden McCausland (Franco) strikes up...

Exclusive: Add the short story Drunken Fireworks to the number of Stephen King-penned fictions making their way to the big screen. Rabbit Bandini Productions and Rubicon Entertainment have teamed on the drama, and James Franco is set to star. He possibly could direct as well, but that hasn’t yet been decided. The script is being written by Matt Rager, a frequent Franco collaborator whose credits include As I Lay Dying, The Sound And The Fury and the upcoming John…...

One the perks of being a producer-director-writer-actor is the sheer quantity of circles that the multi-hyphenate tag permits you entry into. For James Franco, this means he meets a lot of people. Moreso than any other non-celebrity might in a regular day. By that rationale, it’s probably a lot easier to cast movies seeing as he knows everybody. Applying that conclusion to today’s piece of news on his latest effort, In Dubious Battle seems to stick; he really does know everybody because everybody’s in the movie.

Josh Hutcherson, Zach Braff, Analeigh Tipton, Ashley Greene and Ahna O’Reilly are the latest additions to a cast that’s already bulging with starry names. This new roster join Nat Wolff, who signed up two days ago, and the previously-announced Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Danny McBride, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston and Franco himself.

In Dubious Battle explores...

Nat Wolff, who stole the world’s hearts as the cute sidekick in The Fault In Our Stars, is gearing up for another literary adaptation. In addition to his second John Green adaptation Paper Towns – due for release this summer – Wolff has signed up for a part in James Franco’s next movie, In Dubious Battle.

The film takes place in the 1930s and follows the story of Jim Nolan (Wolff). An activist for “the Party,” he organizes a major strike by apple pickers in California, and vies to attract followers to his cause. Wolff joins a starry ensemble that includes Franco, Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Danny McBride, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris and Bryan Cranston.

This marks the second collaboration for the actor and director, who worked together on 2013’s Palo Alto. While that was based on Franco’s own collection of short stories, this project will return focus...

Exclusive: The Help’s Ahna O’Reilly and The Hobbit’s Richard Armitage are in the midst of filming Sleepwalker, a psychological thriller from writer Jack Olsen and director Elliott Lester (Nightingale). O’Reilly leads the cast as a grad student who goes to a campus sleep clinic to treat her insomnia and nightmares, but instead starts experiencing unsettling changes in her waking reality every time she wakes up. With the help of a doctor, she attempts to find her way back to normalcy by unraveling the tangled knot of her dreams, reality, and shockingly tragic past.

English actor Armitage is hot off of ruling Middle Earth under heavy beard and armor in Peter Jackson’s nearly-completed Hobbit trilogy. He stars in Sleepwalker as the handsome sleep researcher who develops a unique relationship with O’Reilly. After leading New Line’s summer disaster actioner Into The Storm, Armitage returns to...

Glenn has been attending the 25th Stockholm Film Festival as a member of the Fipresci jury. Today he looks at James Franco's latest creative endeavour, 'The Sound and the Fury'.

James Franco’s latest isn’t a part of the films I was sent to Sweden to judge, but in my apparent need to one day become the pre-eminent expert on the 36-year-old’s career, I decided to find time for The Sound and the Fury. His second Faulkner adaptation after last year’s As I Lay Dying shows that Franco is improving as a director when it comes to the creation of coherent and engaging cinematic worlds, but while somebody like the equally fast-moving Xavier Dolan is able to take his inspirations and weave them throughout his own auteurial style, Franco’s films still feel like he’s merely copying what he has seen elsewhere without...

Seth Rogen, Megan Fox and Will Ferrell have joined James Franco's Zeroville.

Danny McBride, Dave Franco, Craig Robinson, Joey King and Horatio Sanz have also been added to the film, reports Screen Daily.

Zeroville is an adaptation of the Steve Erikson 2007 novel set in the late 1960s.

The story centers around a 24-year-old architecture student and film obsessive with a print of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun tattooed on his head.

He travels to Hollywood and finds himself swept up into the film business after being mistaken for a member of the Charles Manson Family.

In addition to a starring role, Franco will also be directing the feature with Caroline Aragon and Vince Jolivette set to produce.

Jacki Weaver was recently added to the lineup.

Rogen and Franco are longtime collaborators on projects including The Interview, This is the End and The Sound and the Fury.

Prior to James Franco’s first adaptation in 2013, no one had taken on the daunting task of adapting a William Faulkner novel for film since 1983’s A Rose For Emily. Successfully adapting Faulkner is nearly impossible, and Franco learned this the hard way as scathing reviews for As I Lay Dying surfaced after its premiere. One would hope that Franco would have learned from that disaster, but less than a year later, the filmmaker is back with his adaptation of Faulkner’s most esteemed novel, The Sound and the Fury.

There are many reasons why the revered American author’s novels are often called “unfilmable.” While they are certainly experimental and cerebral, the most difficult part about adapting a Faulkner novel is capturing the stream-of-consciousness style of writing he often used. To elaborate, many of Faulkner’s novels are written in first person perspectives, with their narrator’s thoughts written...

TriStar Pictures

E-Books, Kindles, Quick-Readers the world of literacy is spinning so fast right now but nothing beats grabbing a heavy hardback and being a hardcore book lover.

You didn’t put all this effort into getting through the Top Reads of All Time list by the time you graduated college for nothing; you can finally kick back, relax and be proud and smug about yourself. Only a true die-hard book lover will understand the emotional journey you are on daily as you head off into many different worlds. The late nights you have to endure because you know the ending is just a couple of chapters away, then when you get there are left devastated that your new favourite book has come to an end. You can even multi-task having your head in a good book whilst navigating through busy train stations with no problem at all.

So kick back,...

Another of Chuck Palahniuk’s works is being brought from the page to the big screen. No, not the still-surprising Fight Club 2—it’s his novel Rant, which will make the transition thanks to James Franco.

As Lit Reactor first reported, Franco has optioned the rights to adapt Palahniuk’s 2007 book, which goes by the full title Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey. The author and Franco both confirmed the news on Twitter on Sept. 11.

Buster Casey is coming to the big screen! @JamesFrancoTV just optioned Rant! Details here – http://t.co/IxfyI0vHlZ #rant

— Chuck Palahniuk (@chuckpalahniuk) September 11, 2014

Me And Chuck Palahniuk!

James Franco keeps his slate full with notable literary adaptations like The Sound and the Fury, Child of God, and Zeroville. Franco will add another, as Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk tells Lit Reactor that Franco optioned his book Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey. Set in the near future, the story centers on recounted memories of Buster "Rant" Casey, the leader of an urban demolition derby who "will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life." Deadline adds that Franco is eying the title role and Pamela Romanowsky is in line to write and direct the adaptation. Hit the jump for Palahniuk's full quote and the book synopsis: Here's what Palahniuk told Lit Reactor: As of last night we've finalized a deal for James Franco to option my novel Rant. Details about the casting,...

To date, only two of Chuck Palahniuk's novels have made the feature film leap—"Fight Club" and "Choke." One is considered one of the most important films of the millennium and the other...isn't. Meanwhile, James Franco's literary adaptations to date ("The Sound And The Fury," "Child Of God," "As I Lay Dying") have been a mixed bag at best. So, what will happen with the two combine? Well, we'll soon see, as Litreactor reports that Franco has snapped up the rights to Palahniuk's "Rant." It's all early days, and it's not clear if a studio is already involved, if Franco will direct or act or produce or all three, but the premise is pretty wild stuff, as you'd expect. Here's the Amazon synopsis: Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small...

William Faulkner’s impressionistic novel The Sound and The Fury was published to little initial acclaim or success in 1929, and tells of the dissolution of a genteel family in the American south from the end of the Civil War into the first decades of the 20th century. The novel set the template for the down-at-heel Southern aristocratic tropes (incest, mental illness, alcoholism, etc) which has been endlessly replayed and parodied in popular culture, but the impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness prose and overlapping four-part narrative makes it a less than obvious choice for film adaptation.

The seemingly workaholic James Franco should have left well enough alone; his adaptation (following on from a poorly received 1959 film version by director Martin Ritt) is a laughable mis-fire on all fronts. The film reduces the novel’s four-part narrative to a three-part structure told from the points of view of brothers Benjy (Franco), Quentin (Jacob Loeb) and Jason (Scott Haze) Compson.

The 2014 Toronto International Film Festival lineup is complete! With the event now just a little over two weeks away, the Discovery Program, the Kids Program and additional selections for other festival sections have been announced. James Franco’s The Sound and the Fury will have its North American premiere and the Bill Murray-starrer, St. Vincent, will get a world premiere in the Special Presentations section, ’71 featuring Jack O’Connell will play in the Discovery Program and Martin Scorsese’s The 50 Year Argument will screen in the Mavericks Program, just to name a few. On top of that, Mavericks is now also loaded with iconic talent set to take part in discussions including Denzel Washington, Antoine Fuqua, Juliette Binoche, Robert Duvall and more. Hit the jump to check out all of the new additions to the Tiff lineup. Mavericks Program Mavericks Conversation With… Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua Mavericks Conversation With…...

Bill Murray starrer St. Vincent will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of this week’s wave of programming that includes Discovery.

The Discovery section includes the upcoming world premiere of Stories Of Our Lives, a portmanteau of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex testimonies by anonymous filmmakers from Kenya.

Selections include first-looks of Ross Katz’s Us comedy Adult Beginners, Sarah Leonor’s French Legion drama The Great Man, Isidora Marras’ Chile-Argentinian psychothriller I Am Not Lorena and UK drama X + Y.

“Christopher Nolan, Steve McQueen, Lynne Ramsay and David Gordon Green all presented their first features in our Discovery section,” said Tiff artistic director Cameron Bailey. “It’s a great place to spot new talent first.”

Besides St. Vincent, Festival Additions includes concert film cum road movie Roger Waters The Wall, while the world premiere of Krzysztof Zanussi’s Foreign Body takes its place among the Masters strand.

Tiff Docs arrivals...

It's just two weeks to go until the Toronto International Film Festival, and organizers are putting the final touches on the lineup. Sorry, still no sign of Terrence Malick. Today comes even more highlights added to the Tiff slate: The hugely buzzed, Bill Murray starring "St. Vincent" will make its world premiere; Palme d'Or winner "Winter Sleep" gets its North American debut; James Franco's "The Sound And The Fury" crosses the pond from Venice; Martin Scorsese's doc "The 50 Year Argument" arrives in Canada; and other movies to keep an eye on include efforts from Ross Katz, Julie Taymor and more. Tiff runs from September 4-14. Additions to the lineup below. Mavericks Conversation With… Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua Denzel Washington is one of the film world’s most prominent leading men, known best for his galvanizing portrayals of both real-life figures (Malcolm X, The Hurricane, American Gangster) and fictional.